Yesterday in the AA News business section Mike Ramsey wrote a really ridiculous article about an impending shortage of skilled labor in this country.

“There’s a lot of baby boomers in the population and the first ones turned 60 not too long ago, and by 2010 a lot of them will be leaving the work force in droves,” said Sean McAlinden, chief economist for the Ann Arbor-based Center for Automotive Research. “Quite frankly, by 2010, presuming we still have any auto plants at all, they will all be hiring.”

The problem with that statement is that presumption of having any auto plants in 2010. Here is a copy of the letter I sent to the News this morning.

As I read Mike Ramsey’s article about a looming labor shortage, the only thing I could think was “What planet is this guy living on?” Has Mr. Ramsey actually tried to find a job in Michigan recently. There is not a shortage a labor here now or in the near future. What there is, is a shortage of skilled laborers willing or able to work for Wal-Mart wages. There are thousands of skilled workers who are being laid off by automakers and suppliers now and in the next few years. Skilled (and unskilled) laborers from Delphi have been asked to take a 60% pay cut. Even people who are not losing their jobs are seeing there wages stagnate or worse. According to census data median household income fell 3.8% from 1999-2004 while prices continued to climb and even productivity increased over that same period. Of course this wage stagnation has not been applied to executives whose compensation has continued to climb. As manufacturing jobs continue to get shipped to low cost labor markets, the only way people can get jobs here is to accept lower wages. Soon there will be no market in the United States for all the cheap products because no one here will be employed. As I was graduating with my engineering degree 15 years ago, there was a lot of talk of a shortage of 750,000 engineers by now. Well that never materialized either. If anything is a surplus of engineers now.

As the workforce ages there will also still be plenty of people available to work. Without decent paying jobs we won’t have a younger workforce paying into social security and with pension plans going belly up, the people who expected to retire will have to stay in the workforce. And since only people who already have plenty of money seem to be benefiting from the tax cuts of recent years, the vast majority of us will just have to keep working or at least trying to. Also the tax policies of the republican legislature and the previous republican governor have done nothing but eviscerate revenue for the state and local governments so they can’t do anything to help either.
Next time Mr. Ramsey might want to talk to someone besides the corporate managers who are obsessed with off-shoring every job they can before writing such a ridiculous article.

So this morning I look at the auto pages of the local papers and it is all about huge layoffs of engineers at General Motors, anywhere from at few hundred to a couple of thousand at the Warren, MI Tech Center. So what pops in my e-mail this afternoon? A message from a head-hunter who saw my resume on monster.com about a job opportunity at GM. Needless to say, since I have a family to support and and mortgage to pay, I decided to humbly decline the offer. Too bad because in another time and place it might have been an interesting opportunity.

I just spotted this on a sign posted outside a cubicle at my office

Due to the current financial constraints, the light at the end of the tunnel will be turned off until further notice.

That about sums up the situation around here.

A Detroit Free Press story yesterday proves that auto parts can be profitably manufactured in Michigan. More importantly this is being done while workers are being paid good wages. The interesting thing here is that this is a privately held company. It seems that if the management of a company doesn’t have to worry about showing analysts constant growth every three months, they can invest some money in the company and people and actually grow more and make money. Instead of taking all the money out of the company they put some of it back in. Three cheers for Chuck O’Brien and Ring Screw works!!! We need more people like him to help revive the Michigan and US economies.

I had to interview someone today for an open position we have in our group. Given the events of the past week (see my previous posts on salary harmonization) I had a hard time even trying to get someone to come to work here. The candidate did at least seem more capable than the last four people we brought in. I was also very tempted to give the HR person a piece of my mind when she brought the interviewee over, but I decided it was best to hold my tongue at this point. Her time will come.

I previously posted about the the salary harmonization plan put together by our human resources department. Well this thing has turned into a complete clusterfuck. First they told us that we would all be slotted into ne salary grades based on what we do. Everyone in a grade would have the same compensation plan. In theory this is fine, but they have completely messed it up. Those of us at my level who have been here for many years previously were eligible for a 20% bonus. A couple of years ago they decided to eliminate the bonus for new hires. To compensate and provide some equity they were hired in at a 16% higher base salary. Since their annual merit raises were based on the same percentage of a higher base rate there was relative pay parity overall under the old plan. Well under the new plan every gets a bonus, but it is only 5% at my pay grade. As a result I and others who have been here for more than 3 years get a 15% CUT IN PAY. Meanwhile new hires get a 5% increase. So now someone who has only been here a couple of years is suddenly making upwards of 20% more than someone who has been here longer. The HR reps told us that they had no plans to adjust base salaries for veteren employees to compensate for this. This is total BULLSHIT!

Department heads were supposed to hand out individual sheets to everyone with their new salary grades yesterday. Well yesterday afternoon we found out that they had been told not distribute them. It turns out that engineering directors had not been informed of HR’s plans and were not happy when they found out what was going on. HR apparently did all of this on their own without telling any other management what they were planning. So now we have to sit and wait. What a farce.

Well today our HR department unvieled part of the results of their salary harmonization project. Over the years through mergers and buyouts different parts of the company have ended up with different compensation plans from old companies. They wanted to get everyone on the same plan. For the past 10 years I have been eligible for a bonus of 20% of my base salary based on company performance. This company has general done very well, better than most others in the same business. A couple of years ago they decided that new hires would no longer be eligible for a bonus but they got a higher base salary as a result. This led to reasonable equity in overall pay. Now everyone will be eligible for a bonus with the amount depending on your salary grade. They also have all new salary grade levels that everyone will be slotted into. As a result, recent hires may end up with significantly higher base salary and bonus compared to people who have been around longer who will get a siginificant cut in bonus and no adjustment to base salary. Depending on what grade they put me at, I am looking at overall paycut of 10-15% after 14 years with this company while newer hires get a pay increase because base pay wont change but they will add the bonus. I don’t even know what grade level I am going to be at.

This is HARMONIZATION!! Fuck corporate america!!